posted 03-27-2001 21:59            

quote:

---

And finally, "shouryuuken" means rising dragon fist.

---

You have no idea how personally gratifying that was - I always called that move "dragon punch", knew I had a reason, couldn't remember what the fuck it was, and was generally looked at like a weirdo by all the other SFII-ers, who invariably referred to it as "heaven punch."

Yaaaay!

posted 03-28-2001 01:26            

I'm not sure which characters (kanji, as you know know) are used in "hadouken". The "ken" is definitely fist, and I seem to recall that "dou" is movement. But I haven't seen hadouken writted down in a long time, and I don't recall the "ha".

However, the kanji for "wave" and "wing" can both be pronounced ha, so I imagine it is probably one of those two.

Are there any others?

posted 03-28-2001 03:56            

I was always taught that harakiri was the "rude, uncultured" word for seppoku.
Like cock is the rude version of penis.

Huh?? I can't post this because:
"We cannot post your topic because it does not contain at least one letter or number. Use your back button to try again."

posted 03-28-2001 10:13            

Is there a Japanese word for "foreigner" that doesn't have the "filthy barbarian" connotation I've been given to understand "gaijin" does?

Pointless silly mixed-ethnic-slur question: is it worse for a Japanese to call you gaijin, or a Chinese to call you bok gwai?

(Bok gwai translates to "white devil" - from what I understand, it's considerably more insulting than the standard "gwai-lo" (roughly, "round-eye") slur usually found in Hong Kong comic books.)

Edited to note that further research suggests that gwai-lo does not translate to "round-eye", it also translates to something akin to "white devil" - in this case, either "ghost fellow" or "devil man." Wtf? Okay, now there's another question: what IS the REAL difference between bok gwai and gwai lo? Is one Cantonese and the other Mandarin? Is there a subtle difference in translation? What?

posted 03-28-2001 11:10            

Okay, "samurai" is a root word. But are there idiomatic meanings of "daimyo", "katana", or "wakizashi"?

Am I the only one that thinks "tiger lance" (I forget the phonetics for the actual Japanese, but I understand that's the idiomatic translation) is a much cooler name for a trident than "three-tooth" (the idiomatic translation of the word "trident" itself)?

posted 03-28-2001 19:25            

Let's see here-- Gaijin, literally, just means "outside person". Sometimes people say gaikokujin, "outside country person", which is maybe slightly more polite by virtue of being longer. But neither term is really offensive. By and large, japanese convey insult and offense by tone more than specific words. So the same term, say, "bakayaro" could be translated "dummy" when little kids say it at school, but yakuza guys (ya-san these days) use the same words when they're pissed off. And then you'd probably translate it "Fucking asshole."

In other news, daimyo means great name, or great fame. Katana simply means blade, although the word is only used for what you and I know as a katana. Wakizashi I must claim ignorance of, although waki could be the region under the arm, and zashi is probably "stab/pierce" (the same as the first part of sashimi). While we're on the subject, tho, shogun means general (in the army sense), and oyabun (crime boss) is "parent-part" more or less. The word yakuza, I have heard, originated as the name of a hand in some card or dice game- a losing hand, so I was told. The hand was 8-9-3, which can be read ya-ku-za.

I don't know of any difference between harakiri and seppuku. They are both composed of the exact same kanji, stomach and cut, just in different orders. (Harakiri is the japanese origin reading of the kanji, and seppuku is the chinese origin reading.) Of course, neither word is exactly everyday stock in modern Japan.

posted 03-28-2001 23:17            

How about mogwai?

posted 03-29-2001 06:42            

Japanese has a LOT of homophones. What's the context?

posted 03-29-2001 08:37            

From what I've read in FAQs, it translates to, basically, "Legend of the Hungry Wolf".

Fen? Sound right?

posted 03-29-2001 19:30            

Basically, the Japanese are pretty indiscriminate about borrowing from other languages, so I'm sure the garou here is from the french.